Just like you would expect, a boy puts a ring on my finger and I freak out and start dieting . It’s not that I am fat, by all definitions, I think , it’s just that now, I am overcritical of my figure, because I don’t look as slim as I did when I was 18! … Insert your stereotypical bride joke here … I won’t deny it … All of a sudden, I am obsessed with who I am not anymore.
I have been shopping for dresses lately, and man, all of a sudden, my true and tried sizes are too small! Only by a hair, but still! Or they look like crap on my out of shape body! This is what you get for getting married after The Holidays, I figured. Or after 30!
And this is how I discover that I am getting old and rusty, too. And losing 5 lbs in a week by eating salads only doesn’t do the trick anymore … And today, after a lovely chat with my dad, I realized, I need to be reasonable!I need food, and starving is not a solution. And sometimes, what I might think it’s gaining weight might just be part of the whole aging process. As long as I don’t jump BMI brackets – I am fine. Nothing like a good talking with dad to bring me back to earth and talk some sense into me!
He said: “Honey, I want you to write this down, and frame it somewhere! In fact, I really think you should write to whoever is in charge, and this should be written on the Time Square ball when it drops for New Year’s every year in New York City. Just so ALL Americans be aware of it”.
I go, with doubt in my voice and eyes rolling: “OK, dad! What is it?!”
Him: “Are you writing it down? It’s important! You need to frame it!”
Me: “OK! Shoot!”
Him: “This is supposed to be your motto for the year. And definitely for the wedding. So, here it comes: Stress makes you fat. Dieting is stressful. Done. Do you understand?!”
And just like that – in those very simple words, I understood!
Then, he goes on a lecture about how this year will be nothing but stress, and I need nourishment to carry me through it! And to stop starving myself and just let life roll. And he is so right. I need to love myself before I put myself to the tasks I have planned for this year. In any shape.
So, I’ll watch portions and I’ll make time to walk … but I should not kill myself … Hunger makes me very cranky, anyway. And like any reasonable person out there, I know that stress holds on to fat as comfort … And I’ll just need to get a size or half of a size bigger dresses for the wedding.
After all, I am not 18 anymore! And I need to embrace my age. However rusty and metabolism-slowing it is! And something tells me my man would not care much if my dress came in a size 1 or a 1 and ½! Yes, they have 1 and ½’s out there!! Or even a 2! I hope … No: I know!
Tonight, at Walgreens, the pharmacy, all-and-everything store chain, I have encountered a rare experience. At least in America. At least as much as I have traveled…
This very handsome young man behind the counter took some chances I rarely come across with. The person in front of me, a father with three little girls, was buying three pieces of candy – one for each of them. I was not paying attention to the conversation, but I heard the dad starting to laugh as a response to the attendant’s question (which I did not hear) and answer with an annoyed shake of a head and a shrug: “Yeah, OF COURSE I want a bag! Geez!”.
Didn’t think much of it but I wondered why the attitude in the dad. After all, three pieces of candy that would probably be consumed by the little girls the minute they hit the car seats hardly seems like enough trouble for a bag.
My turn comes. And I buy three loose items which weigh a total of probably a pound. The attendant goes: “Would you like a bag, ma’am?!”
But before I could answer, he continues: “…Uuummm… hopefully NOT!” And stares intently these big, pitch black, eyes at me …
I am so shocked, I can’t answer. I am used to “do you need a bag?” question for maybe a pack of chewing gum, or a lipstick, but I have a couple of things tonight, and am definitely not used to being suggested that I do not in fact need a bag. So this comes as a surprise! Before I knew it, he is putting my things on the counter in front of me, and goes on: “You see, I am trying to promote clean living and the environment”, and makes a wide gesture with his hands, as if to suggest The Earth.
I started laughing awkwardly and told him “Good for you!”. Picked up my stuff and started off to the car.
What shocked me more, though, was not his professed care for the environment, so much as his courage. In America, we like our bags! We expect our bags! As a mainstream, unfortunately, people mock the environmentalists. In Canada, they pay for their bags, if they need them, not only at Ikea, but also at the Pharmacy, convenience stores, the mall, and even at the most common grocery stores. In Germany, you pay a fine if they find one item in the wrong bin: recyclables go to recyclables and trash goes to trash. You put one bottle in the trash, you get a ticket from the City.
But in America, we love customer service, and we love to be pampered, and we love the freedom to do whatever we want with our stuff! Even the freedom to litter: if it’s convenient for us, who cares about the planet, right?! It’s part of the package, it seems, of instant gratification, consumerism, high expectations and taking for granted – all, sadly, very American traits.
Now, I realize the response of the dad is more like : “Do not touch my right to a bag, a**h*le!”. And I tell you, I salute that man behind the counter, that faces the American consumer, probably the most spoiled on Earth, to refuse their right to a bag! I hope his spirit will outlive the carelessness of most people and will not jade. After all, all it takes is one small step!
OK, I have to admit, I do miss snow once in a while. Not the snow itself as I miss what snow brings: comfort food, the excuse to somehow consume millions of calories - mindlessly, working from home, fireplace going, mashed potatoes, and naps. A lot of them.
The one thing I would rather do without when snow comes to North Carolina is the whole town going apey about it! Seriously, folks, the weatherman says we’re getting 10 inches of snow, not that The Great Famine is coming! The grocery stores on Friday looked more crowded than on Christmas Eve. Sure, business is good when snow hits the South, but as a pedestrian, a driver and just a regular consumer, I can do without the rudeness, frantic-ness, people forgetting the laws of driving and common decency!
My back patio, this morning
I cannot help but wonder: do families, however large, really consume 10 gallons of milk in a couple of days? Or do old people really consume 5 cans of the same WalMart brand veggie soup, in the two days they’re stuck in the home? Or how can cold milk and stale bread help you if your power gets knocked out and you’re freezing in the home? Just wondering!
I would love to see how much leftover stuff people have in their homes after a snow weekend. You could probably feed a small nation with the surplus groceries of one small town!
It makes me smile, also, how snow is somewhat of a breaking news everywhere: people talk about nothing besides snow. Forget the war, politics, health care, job loss, latest news in entertainment, like what Angelina did this week, we’ve got snow! I swear, if Leno took over this weekend (and not two weeks ago, or whenever it happened), we, down here, would never know about it! We would have no way to find out! All that the TV talks about is snow, so does the local paper, on the home page, and the front page, you get no other “status updates” on Facebook from anyone other than: it’s snowing; we got 6 inches; thank God for whiskey in the snow; recipes for snow ice cream (really?!? Whatever happened with “do not eat snow!”?! ); kids cranky that snow’s not good enough for playing in it; cabin fever – you get the idea…
The little cynic in me doesn’t like it one bit how a seemingly natural and ordinary element like snowing is glorified to the levels of a show stopper like snow is in The South! After all, people, we live at 36 degrees Northern Latitude, not in the Sahara Desert! It’s a little bit more than comical. It’s bordering on the absurd, in my opinion!
I took a trip to Michigan a couple of weeks back, or as many call it, The Great White North. And I am telling you, it deserves the nickname. There is nothing but great whiteness up there. All the time. For six months, I am told. No blade of grass for that many months. The air even is milky with fog, most days … Icicles are as long as the frame of the home itself, and mountains of snow pile up in parking lots, taller than buildings at times. And then, there are the lakes. In the case of my visit, one of the Great Lakes – a big, wide, open sea of white. No water, well, no liquid water, in sight!
And somehow, life moves on up there, uninterrupted. Kids go to school every day, and traffic moves right along. Plows do their job and roads are clear. Waitresses wear shorts, and people don’t bother for a coat if they just walk from the car to the restaurant. In other words: a snowy day is just another day. Wait it out, it’ll melt! As much as I would hate the length of it, I really enjoyed the ordinariness of snow up there.
Not in the South. Barricade yourself and prepare for The Great Famine. Sure, it’ll melt. But what if not before we’re out of milk?! And stop sending Facebook and text updates on the snow! I have windows in my home. I can see it’s snowing. Use airwaves for something less mundane. Maybe.
In South Haven, MI, on the shores of Lake Michigan. Or where snow lives. Please click on the picture for more Michigan winter shots
“Another turning point the fork stuck in the road.
Time grabs you by the wrist and directs you where to go.
So make the best of this test and don't ask why.
It's not a question but a lesson learned in time.
It's something unpredictable
but in the end it's right.
I hope you had the time of your life.
So take the photographs and still frames in your mind.
And hang it on a shelf in good health and good time.
Tattoos and memories and dead skin on trial.
For what it's worth, it was worth all the while.
It's something unpredictable
but in the end it's right.
I hope you had the time of your life.”
(Green Day – Good Riddance)
I will never forget (Alzheimer’s not counting) my first ride from the airport in Atlanta to the first brew pub, when I first “landed” in The Land of All Possibilities. I was trying really hard not to be that wide open eyed, wonder child who looks up at the skyscrapers from the moving car that you know from cheesy movies.
Fortunately, Atlanta doesn’t have all that many skyscrapers. Or at least not as tall as the ones movies show for New York, Seattle and Chicago, I guess. But I do remember how my breath stopped on that ride, because the radio was playing this song . And I thought: “Oh, my God, how fitting! This IS my fork in the road. This IS my turning point. This WILL BE my song. My American song”. And every time I hear it, it brings me back to that moving car, on the way to the brew pub and the heart of Atlanta. And every time I hear it, I know, that the song I thought prophetic then, proved to be just that – to a tee.
I am not sure if “good riddance” is what my parents said when I left home for this whirlwind trip to America, but looking back, it surely feels that way!
I didn’t want this week to go by withoutmaking a writing stop to celebrate my 12 year American celebration of January 19, 1998. As I have said before, with a head full of dreams and curls, I came here trying to figure out how to make a life. I was not yet 23. But I thought at the time that I was 22 going on 50. I knew everything, and just needed the right environment to make it happen.
And I know you’ll think of my big head here, but so I did. I have had the “time of my life”, as the song goes. I just wanted to stop for a minute and recap what happened in the past 12 years.
I grew, and I became what you see today; I married, and had two step kids for a while; we took family trips, and made fires in the woods and told ghost stories; I watched them grow for almost four years, and gave them a home; I divorced, and painfully found my own way in a world that I just started to understand; I loved, and I cried, and I fell out of love, and I learned that life is not over after a breakup.
I bought houses. Four of them. And made a home. For just me out of two of them. I fell in love again. For four amazing years, and I made future plans which were once again to fail. Through it all, I loved, and gave, and received love, and matured, and learned. Continuously … learned …
I have lived one of the two dreams of my childhood: to live in The American South. Just like one of my heroes, Scarlett O’Hara. I really diddream of moving to Atlanta and figuring things out like she did. I came pretty close.
I have struggled with languageand learned yet again that what you learn in college about ‘English as a foreign language’ does not hold water when you live in The South. I have learned to love the liquid, humid air of August in North Carolina. I thought I’d never do! But it happened!
I have grown over my shyness. After all, there was no one there to do things for me. If I didn’t ask, I was left wanting. I have raised three cats, and made a home for them. I have found dogs to be lovely creatures, after all, and made peace with them, too.
I have gotten a tattoo… Just like the millions of pictures I have taken, it’s a memento of where I have been, who I am, and what my life is like.
I have grayed. I guess, I am pushing 50 after all. I have seen every state between Florida and Massachusetts, and traveled out West and to Canada. I have climbed the TwinTowers in New York in 1999. And felt like I conquered the world. How I am going to treasure that story to tell to my nieces and nephews… What a breathless moment to think back at! I have visited Ellis Island, and cried, because I understood! Their story was mine. Their “island of tears and hope” was mine. I am so ecstatically thankful for that!
I have gotten jobs and I have made a career. I have helped those in need, and learned to be grateful to just be. I have had plenty. No, no, it’s an accomplishment! Coming from Romania, and growing up in Communism, where you have nothing, I can tell you: I have had plenty. Plenty of food, and heat, and drinks, and choices, and most of all, plenty of freedom. I came here looking for just that: freedom: to read, to see, to know, to travel, to be who I am without restrictions. America has been very accepting of that. I am home.
I have lived as a resident for eight of the 12 I have been here and I have been a citizen for almost four. I voted to elect the first black American president in history. And I have worked for a paper that ran on the front page a story about a woman running for president on the day my nephew was born. A new world. I have seen history turn abruptly!
I have been able to show my parents, ever the dreamers about such a perfect land as America, the beauty and peacefulness of this country. I am grateful for that! To see their eyes open up with a new light and a new smile about how easy and giving and wonderful life could be in a free land, to see them cry as they float by The Statue of Liberty is what I live for.
I have become an aunt, and my only sister and twin soul has gotten married, had my nephew and also found a free home in Canada. I have lost a beloved grandmother, and I had to learn the painful way to say good bye to someone without being there at the end. That is a lesson that hurt the most! I have thus learned that you must say what you mean and what you feel when given the opportunity, and not wait. Tomorrow might never come and pay attention: “opportunities don’t come with labels”, so pay close attention!
I have had my disappointments. In my new country, and its politics, in the lack of healthcare and what seem pointless restrictions (like alcohol laws – I know, trivial!), and in life in general. I have learned not to believe in forever, and just to trust the now. I have learned that if you do that, the forever will take care of itself – but it’s the now that needs you the most. So, give your all to it.
I have met wonderful people that have taught me so much! Sure, wonderful people are everywhere, but I will forever be grateful to folks, like JC. Not just because he taught me by example how to live and love my life and who I am, but also because he made me understand this country, even when I am not crazy about her politicians’ decisions.
I am grateful for all my friends here, who taught me everything I know today about living in America. Taught me about mortgages, home warranty, shopping at WalMart, driving a car, renewing my license, eating pumpkins, oat meat and grits, shrimp, eating out, Thanksgiving, the craziness of Christmas, being independent and feeling powerful as a single woman. I am also grateful for my friends far away who have managed to keep in touch across many miles over such a long time. It’s them who ground me!
I have met my new love and I am giving marriage another shot. I never say “never” after all, and I believe in the good of the individual, not so much in labels. And thus, I am at “a turning point” with “the fork stuck in the road” again! As before, in Atlanta, with the Green Day song being so fitting, I am appropriately moving to Spanish Fork. My second childhood dream of searching for The Last Frontier of America, and following the trails of so many brave people in history looking for possibilities and more freedom will now be able to take place. I am once again hopeful and wide eyed. I am yet to find out if “The West is the Best”, I guess. The sky scrapers are The Rockies now, and I am ever so excited! 12 years did nothing to my cynicism, evidently!
More than anything… I have learned that I can stand on my own two feet and weather pretty much anything. As long as you know who you are, and you live in a place that cherishes the individual, you’re fine. One thing I have managed not to do, or maybe two, is (are): I have not become quite the avid consumer Americans are for the most part. Nor did I gain exorbitant weight. I did gain! It’s a sign of “a good life”, my mom says … but not to the point where you can’t recognize me. I consider those good things, though!
I have kept my faith and I am practicing it every day. I am forever thankful to my folks that gave me such great, fulfilling roots that I cannot and would not rid of! Roots and wings is what you need. And boy, have I gotten both!
I am living my dreams. I am living my dad’s dreams and making my mom proud. I have really little to complain about. I am the same, and yet better (remember: big head!) and wiser, and I am grateful that I have kept an open mind and heart and open eyes and let America flood me! I am ever so full.
I still think of myself as an immigrant and as a newbie! I never ever want to stop feeling like that. In Yoga, they tell you “I never want to stop being a beginner”. And that is so simple and so true: I never want to be rid of the curiosity and excitement a beginner has! A beginner will try anything. And I will try to forever stay a newly-off-the-boat …uumm – plane Romanian immigrant! Still learning. So much!
I still have the head full of curls (albeit gray) and definitely of dreams. Listening to my anniversary song all week, I find it still to be a great song. And it’s even better, trust me, when it becomes life.
